Sunday, 18 March 2018

Standing at the
rails of RMS Sylvania in the pink and grey dawn of Sunday, 8th
October 1962, I was choked with emotion as I caught sight of the Manhattan
skyline. The tall buildings reached for the sky while the more mundane waterfront
buildings were lost in the murky grey and blending into the background. It was,
without doubt, one of the most memorable moments of my life.

Despite the seeming nearness of the
skyline, it took hours before the ship finally docked and hours again before we
were finally allowed down the gangplank, having been told to wait in the
Customs shed till I was reunited with my trunk, which had been stowed in the
hold. Mr Peters, a tall man with thinning hair and a wide grin, was waiting for
me. Somehow he got that huge trunk in his car on his own.

Being a Sunday, Manhattan was
comparatively quiet. I say comparatively because, of course, Manhattan is never really quiet. It truly is
the city that never sleeps. There is often a pre-dawn lull in the ever-present
traffic when the streets are quieter. But in fact, there is a steady hum all
the time from the traffic, probably because it is trapped between the tall
buildings on either side of the wide streets. Driving through Manhattan on that very first day seemed like
we were driving through a canyon. To me though, the most noticeable sight was
the steam rising from manholes in the road. Mr Peters told me that these were
the ventilation shafts of the subway. In my fanciful dream-like state, the
whole seemed like a vision of hell, made even more noticeable with the speed of
the cars flashing past us and weaving in and out of the traffic in a lunatic
way.

Soon we were going through the
Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River to bring us out into New Jersey. As we
came out of the tunnel and swung round 360°, Mr Peters told me to look over
towards Manhattan.
It was the most spectacular view of the city from the New
Jersey shoreline over the Hudson River.
It was a view I always looked out for, even more spectacular at night when
everything was lit up and one I never tired of. Then we were on the New Jersey
Turnpike.

After about an hour’s driving, we
were in the leafy suburbs of Princeton, where the

The Peters' comfortable home in Princeton

Peters lived, mainly notable
for its University, one of the so-called Ivy-League universities. Soon, we were
pulling up outside a typical clapboard house, built on several levels, which I
learned later was a split-level house, and I was being ushered through what Mr
Peters called ‘The Den’. It was a sort of family room with several easy chairs
or sofas, all well-worn but comfy looking, and a TV in the corner. Up a few
stairs was the kitchen which, it seemed, was full of people although there were
only four of us, including me. Mr Peters introduced me to his wife, a tall
angular woman, wearing a wrap-over denim skirt and a pretty flowered blouse, a
typical uniform for her. The third person was a man, wearing tennis whites,
perched on one of the worktops, who was introduced as a cousin. I was instantly
smitten and had a crush on him for the remainder of my time in Princeton. The odd thing is that I can’t remember his
name.

I do remember that he thought it was
‘kinda cute’ that I wanted a cup of tea. Mrs Peters had to rummage in one of
the cupboard that lined the wall before she was able to produce a packet of tea
bags, unknown to me at that time. Back in England we were still using loose
tea. Even odder was their reaction to my wanting milk and sugar in my tea
instead of lemon.

I don’t remember too much else about
that first day. I must have been introduced to the children, who were called in
from the yard, what we would call a garden, a large expanse of grass with a few
shrubs dotted around, where they had been playing. Rick, the eldest, was about
eleven, a stock lively-looking boy with very short spiky hair; Jonathan, who
was seven, was a quiet-looking boy with a dreamy look about him; and David, who
was three, was a typical toddler, sweet-faced and chubby.

My
room was next to the den and overlooked the drive and car port. The single bed
was covered in a pretty orangey cotton patterned spread that matched the
curtains. There was a chest of drawers-cum-dressing table, a wardrobe and a low
table on which was, joy of joys, a record player. It was a lovely restful room
and I was thrilled with it.

My room was to become a haven to me
over the following months. It sheltered me in many moods, weepy, happy, sad, lonely.
That first night, I cried myself to sleep, overcome by the awesome realisation
that I was on my own in a strange land, missing Mum and Dad, even my pesky
little brother, Mark. I didn’t recognise it at first as homesickness but that
was what it was. It was a feeling I was to become familiar with over the next
few weeks. I honestly didn’t believe I was going to be able to settle down and
more than once wondered about the possibility of going home. This feeling
mostly came over me on a night when the children had gone to bed, the Peters
were having their own dinner and I was alone in my room listening to music,
writing in my diary, or letters home. I could have watched the TV in the Den
but in the early days I wasn’t familiar with the American TV schedules. I kept
that diary faithfully all the time I was there and afterwards, only getting rid
of it when I married. I’ve regretted that so many times.

Fortunately, during the day, I had
much to occupy my time, new things to experience, new sights to see, the
children to look after. Mostly that was seeing to the two youngest, Rick, being
older didn’t need much looking after, getting all their breakfasts, seeing Rick
and Jonny off to school (or at least to the end of the street from where the
yellow school bus collected them). The daytime consisted of keeping an eye on
David while doing some light household chores, like the children’s rooms, their
bathroom, my own room and bathroom, washing and ironing. For the first time, I
became aware of a clothes’ dryer and how much easier it made life.

I often had an hour or so to myself
in the afternoons because David still had a nap. Soon after, the two older boys
would be home from school and it was all action stations from then on till they
went to bed.

A
particular bonus to me was the fantastic central heating. Coming from the
freezing cold house in Brunswick
Avenue, central heating was a revelation. The
temperature was set at a constant 75°F which meant that at most I needed to
wear a cotton blouse and a denim skirt (a wrapover style like Mrs Peters, one
of my first purchases) in the house. The heating didn’t go off at night either;
it stayed on at a minimum of 68°F. The thermostat was located in the den,
adjacent to my room, and it was one of my jobs to turn the thermostat down
before I settled for the night. The constant warmth was, to me, pure bliss.

Mrs Peters showed me everything I
needed to know, that first few days, and took me around the town. It was a
pretty town, still with many old buildings, some of which had been incorporated
into the University, and it reminded me very much of Cambridge. As it was early October, the
students hadn’t started back yet, though would do so in a week or so. She
explained that the town would then become much busier. Mr Peters was an
investment broker in Manhattan and commuted there daily. Not by car, though, it
would have taken too long. Instead, he drove to Princeton Junction, caught the
train to somewhere on the New Jersey coast, then crossed the Hudson River by
ferry.

I hadn’t been in America very long
when I began to pick up, from the TV news and from the Peters’ conversation,
that there was some kind of crisis facing the US over Cuba. What I did
understand, when I delved a little deeper, was that Cuba had installed
Russian-built missiles aimed at the US in general, and Florida in particular,
only 80 or so miles away. America,
feeling understandably vulnerable, made threatening noises to Cuba, who turned to Russia for back-up. They, in turn,
sent some of their fastest ships heading towards Cuba. For about ten days, there was
a stand-off between Russia
and America,
when the threat of a nuclear war was very real. There was much hysteria on American
TV and I was frightened, being so far from home. If anything was to happen, I
wanted to be home with my family. Impossible, of course, but this, combined
with my homesickness, made it a difficult and anxious time. I would have given
anything for the measured tones of a BBC news reader reading out the news.
Then, just as the situation became more tense, the Russians backed off and the
missiles started to be dismantled.